Thanks to a lifesaving lung transplant, the mother of two made a full recovery only to be left virtually blind in 2006 after developing another rare condition.

She has since had two corneal transplants to restore her sight.

Gillian, 64, said: “I have always wanted grandchildren and there were so many times when I didn’t think I’d ever live to see any. Jasmine is just the most beautiful angel.

“I was shocked when I was diagnosed with the first rare disease but I just got on with it. To be diagnosed with a completely unrelated rare disease a few years later was unbelievable.

“It didn’t matter what was under the tree for me this year.

“I’ve already been given the gift of life and the gift of sight and the icing on the cake was watching Jasmine’s face as she opened her presents on Christmas morning.”

Gillian is backing NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde’s Respect My Dying Wish campaign, which urges relatives to allow their loved one’s organs to be donated in the event of their death.

It’s a cause Gillian, who lives with husband David in Blackwood, Lanarkshire, feels strongly about.

She spent five years on the organ donation register desperately waiting for a match that would save her life after being diagnosed with bronchiolitis obliterans in 1994.

Gillian finally received a lung transplant in 1999 at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle.

She added: “After all that time feeling so ill, I just couldn’t believe the ultimate improvement. I had been given my life back.”

Gillian made a steady recovery but in 2006, she developed Fuchs’ dystrophy, which attacked both eyes, leaving her almost blind. She had a cornea transplant on her left eye at Glasgow’s Southern General Hospital in 2006.

The following year, she had a second operation on her right eye.

She said: “I could barely see and receiving the corneal transplants was nothing short of a miracle.

“Having lived with extremely impaired vision, it was like a light being switched on.”

Delighted Gillian spent Christmas with her family, who travelled to Scotland from their home in York.

She said: “There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t say a prayer of thanks to the donors who gave me the ability to breathe and see again.

“I find it so hard to put into words how grateful I am. Sometimes I wish I could sit in front on them for one minute and give them the biggest hug in the world.

“Organ donation is vitally important and that is why I am so passionate about the Respect My Dying Wish campaign.”

The initiative is urging people to let relatives know if they plan to donate their organs and to ask them to respect their decision.